Hi there
A beautiful evening last evening, got out the 10X50s and hunted down some more Messiers.
M57 Visible tonight, whereas the previous night I couldn't get it. The planetary was stellar in appearance looking like the stars around it.
M30 Due to its southerly location this globular was nothing more than a nebulous path of diffuse light.
M34 A large open cluster in Perseus, this is easy in the binos, 6 stars were visible with direct vision, the remainder of the cluster members were seen as a hazy nebulosity in the background.
M33 Managed to bag this difficult object by slowly sweeping the area back and forth and letting the light hit the more sensitive parts of the eye. It was large and nebulous with no features to be seen.
M110 Averted vision barely showed this blob that looked like an extentsion of M31's core.
M81/82 Easily seen in the same field of view, M82 was a little more difficult than M81, this is most likely due to the elevation of the pair and nature of the glalaxy, M81 being more concentrated.
I tried for M74, I thought I had it more than once, but I couldn't nail it down for certain, I believe under darker skies M74 and M77 should be visible.
One thing is clear and that is the need for a steady support for certain objects, M45 can be seen with ease with handheld binos, for objects such as M30 a tripod is essential.
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning.
Rich Cook
  